PM chairs meeting of Council of Common Interests

Islamabad: The meeting of Council of Common Interests under the chairmanship of Prime Minister Muhammad Shehbaz Sharif is underway in Islamabad on Saturday.

According to details, the meeting of Council of Common Interests held at Prime Minister House is being attended by the four provincial chief ministers, federal ministers and officials of other relevant departments including the Statistics Institute.

The report of the new census will be presented in the meeting.

The Bureau of Statistics will give a briefing on the census to the Council of Common Interests, after which the meeting will undertake a decision regarding whether to conduct the upcoming election on a new census or not.

It is pertinent to note that elections are likely to be delayed if the Digital Census 2023 results are approved.

Speaking to a private news channel in this regard, former Secretary Election Commission Kanwar Dilshad said if CCI approves the census, the elections will be held by 2024.

“If the gazetted notification is issued, the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) is legally bound to re-delimit the constituencies under sub-section 5 of Article 15(1) of the Constitution,” he told.

Notably, the former government has also decided to conduct the 2023 elections under the new census. It was decided in 2021 in the Common Interests Council meeting chaired by former Prime Minister Imran Khan.

The Council of Common Interests in Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) government had approved that 2023 elections would be held under the new census.